Other forms: smashed, smashing, smashes
To smash something is to break it violently into pieces. Smash a window, the glass smashed, smashed to bits.
It is louder and more complete than break. Smash into means to collide hard with something. As a noun, a smash is a crash — a car smash — and a smash or smash hit is an enormous success. In tennis and badminton, a smash is the hard overhead shot. Note smashed, which is British informal for very drunk, and smashing, which is old-fashioned British approval meaning excellent.
1verbsmashTo break something violently into pieces.
“Somebody smashed the window and took nothing.”
2verbcollideTo collide hard with something.
“The car skidded on the ice and smashed into a tree.”
3noungreatA great success.
“The record was a smash everywhere except at home.”
smash is a violent breaking.
Smash appeared in the eighteenth century, probably imitative — possibly a blend of smack and mash. It is one of a family of expressive words coined by sound rather than descent.
Proto-Indo-European
*meyḱ-
English, today
smash
unknown, probably of onomatopoeic origin. Compare Swedish smask (“to smack with the lips”), dialectal Swedish smaska (“to smack, kiss”), Danish smaske (“to smack with the lips”), Low German smaksen (“to smack with the lips, kiss”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA